New York Times to Cut 100 Newsroom Jobs, Invest in Its 'Digital Future'

[3_Octave_Fart]

For this board's breathless fans of The New York Times.
Even it has deigned to start evolving.

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/media-newspaper-New-York-Times-job-cuts/2014/10/01/id/597929/

 

[Songbird]

Should I tweet that? /Baquet

 

[MisterCreosote]

You forgot to mention that it's "investing in its digital future" in part by shutting down one of its major digital initiatives, an NYT opinion app, because of lack of interest and subscribers.

 

[LongTimeListener]

Should be a nice six-figure package for the people who get bought out. It usually is.

I've said this before -- seeing NYT cutbacks as a sign of the industry's decline is like waiting until the attractive white cheerleader overdoses to decide the high school has a drug problem.

 

[3_Octave_Fart]

I thought that was inherent.
I have great contempt for the Times.
But as John Adams said of Alex. Hamilton when he was killed:
"No one wished to be rid of him that way."

 

[LongTimeListener]

Yeah I wasn't addressing you. I've just been seeing this on my FB feed and elsewhere as OH MY GOD THIS IS TERRIBLE FOR JOURNALISM

 

[3_Octave_Fart]

I was talking to Crosote, bud. Carry on. And keep reading the Times! It's all we have left!!

 

[MileHigh]

Times' stock market price after the cuts were announced.

 

[LongTimeListener]

What a ridiculous graphic.

Seeing it you'd think the stock went up about 700 percent. In reality it's up 10 percent.

 

[Drip]

It's not a good day for the business. I'm afraid it's something that was inevitable. A lot of good journalists have been cut.

 

[Dick Whitman]

What a ridiculous graphic.

Seeing it you'd think the stock went up about 700 percent. In reality it's up 10 percent.

That's how stock market charts like that always look. It's representative and appropriate, I think, of a set of people who think that even the most incremental change in their world is an epic event.

 

[Mauve_Avenger]

It's crazy to think that 100 employees is only 7.5 percent of the newsroom.

 

[Joe Williams]

 

[Boom_70]

It's not a good day for the business. I'm afraid it's something that was inevitable. A lot of good journalists have been cut.

They were even better people.

I must have received an e mail a day last week offering me a special
12 week deal that included the NYT Opinion app. There was a limited time
deadline to subscribe. I guess they were not kidding. I feel bad now that I
did not sign on.

The Times has lost a fair amount of readership due to current political climate. A lot of people
have just given up on following national politics. Out of site out of mind.

 

[britwrit]

I thought that was inherent.
I have great contempt for the Times.
But as John Adams said of Alex. Hamilton when he was killed:
"No one wished to be rid of him that way."

Well, except for Aaron Burr.

So, you slash 100 jobs from the profit-making center of your operation and "invest" in the area that really isn't coining it? And who's going to actually write the articles that draw in subscribers? The magic digital elves?

 

[bevo]

Guess I shouldn't worry about whether or not I get a tryout there now. Finished the editing test a few weeks back. Oh well.

 

[Editude]

Readership is still there -- it's just not as profitable. And it is pretty expensive to fly someone into Liberia to do an Ebola scener.

 

[Dick Whitman]

Kind of off-topic, but in some ways I feel like the WSJ is a better newspaper. It doesn't have the quantity of news every day that the Times has. But while sometimes the Times is like reading a magazine, the Journal is a true newspaper. I find their A1 to typically be much more newsy than the NYT A1. That's just my feeling. I guess we'd have to track them for a while to see.

 

[MisterCreosote]

Kind of off-topic, but in some ways I feel like the WSJ is a better newspaper.

I agree.

If memory serves, WSJ is the only newspaper in the country to have grown, both in circulation and in newsroom jobs, in the last decade or so.

 

[3_Octave_Fart]

This is not great journalism. It's the kind of garbage you find on Deadspin.

http://online.wSportsJournalists.com/articles/the-2014-baseball-playoffs-hateability-index-1412008971?tesla=y